


last night feels like a past life

by traiteuse (merriell)



Series: saccharine / disinterest [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Drinking, Loosely inspired from The Raven Cycle, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-23 12:06:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19701040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriell/pseuds/traiteuse
Summary: Steve Harrington dreams, and sometimes, he brings something out of his dream to reality.He doesn’t consent, doesn’t choose, and wakes up with earthquake under his skin.No one knows. No one needs to, at least. He can handle it himself.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by Maggie Stiefvater’s TRC, specifically Ronan and Kavinsky but I haven’t touched TRC for years, so don’t trust me in matching any of the lore/storyline there and here. It's also loosely inspired on the usual, original plot, so you might find things that are familiar here and there. There’s much to be... connected between Billy and Kavinsky too, so, like... (the way their character arc is finished, for example). You should try to read into him if you'd like. :)
> 
> This is supposed to be a series, so expect more, even with only two chapters in this instalment. I just chose not to make it multi-chaptered in one because I tend to be... non-committal, if you want to put it that way. 
> 
> The setting in this is kind of vague, but it's supposed to be set on the show's normal timeline, but I don't know nothing about America in the 80s, so like... told you I'm non-committal.
> 
> Title from Frank Ocean's Nikes: " _punk madre, punk papa / he don't care for me, but he cares for me / and that's good enough_ ". I'm all for Steve being the kind of rich kid that's emotionally abandoned by his parents, cause it does seem like that, so the song's perfect. There's this one line on the song too that goes like: " _we're not in love but I'll make love to you_ ", so you can see why I chose it.

Steve Harrington is standing on the edge of the quarry, and he realizes that he wants to jump.

The quarry is an open-mouthed darkness in front of him, the air around him eerily still, devoid of wind or the sound of animals that lurk in the night. He’s been here before, repeatedly, drinking at the edge with his friends or throwing rocks at the shallower end, but right now, he can’t even see the water he knows should be at the bottom of the quarry.

He knows that what he’s seeing is a dream. No place on earth should be this silent; ] it’s the kind that feels like a knife against his throat, instead of something comforting. He will wake up and nothing will be wrong. He only has to figure out how to wake up.

Turning away, he sees the forest looming closer, crawling in the soil, slowly but surely, into his direction. A blink and he’s no longer at the quarry. Around him the trees were bone-white, the leaves moving but making no sound. His heartbeat was loud in his chest. It seems like it’s the only sound in the world.

There is a shadow near the tree, standing tall, man-shaped. In its shoulder sits a raven with body filled with glass instead of feathers; it caws, shining a purple light around it, yet the shadow is still a dark void with no eyes—but Steve could feel its gaze, ice-cold, making his skin crawl.

The shadow whispers: _cadenti porrigo dextram, cadenti porrigo dextram, cadenti porrigo dextram_...

It repeats, again and again. The whispers stay a whisper in its lips, yet in Steve’s ears, it sounds louder and louder, until he has to cover his ears with his hands.

The raven flies to his direction, obstructing his eyes with purple light.

He wakes up.

The first thing he sees is the broken white of his ceiling. His back feels clammy, sweat pooling at the white shirt he’s wearing. He rubs his eyes before he sits up. Glancing at the window, it’s still way too early. The sun hasn’t even come up yet. Yet he knows he should get up. He knows he’d done something in his sleep, the way earthquake trembles under his skin was evidence enough.

He picks up the sweater that he left on the ground and wears it before walking down to the kitchen. His house is dark and empty, a shell of its former self, dust piling up in every surface, floor sticking grossly to his feet as he walks. There’s boxes and boxes of take-outs and leftover pizzas scattered in the kitchen island.

His mother would’ve nagged him to death if she’s seen it. His father would probably remark on how lazy he is.

He opens one of the newer pizza boxes and nibbles on it for a moment before putting it back down in disgust. Even the cafeteria food tastes better than it; it must’ve been more than a day old.

Steve sighs, leaning against the island for a moment. He should go to school soon. They’d start calling his father’s office, he knows if he skipped class again today. But there’s still one more thing to do before he can even get ready.

So, he walks to his backyard, picking up the bat and flashlight he’d left near the sliding door before he steps out.

Sun slowly comes out, painting the sky a dull, yellow color as he walks into the woods at the back of his house, his flashlight crawling at the soil. His stride is cautious but fast, and he lets his feet carry him to wherever it feels like going rather than following any direction. The wood is still dark, but he paused when he sees a strange, violet glow from afar.

When he approaches it, he sees that the source of the light is a crystal raven, peering at him from a fallen-over tree. It looks harmless. It stares back at him, its head tilted, not even moving or fleeing from him.

Steve rolls the bat inside his hand, playful, before swinging.

It shatters messily, stabbing the molded surface of the tree and scattering in the ground. A few of the shards even stabs itself against the bat. Slowly, he examines his hands, checking if anything got in his skin. He sighs in relief when he finds none.

Cautiously, he picks up the larger shards and walks back to his house. It isn’t that far away, but he feels exhaustion rooting in his bones, the kind that tires him out even before starting his day.

He opens the tool shed near his pool. In the ground, beside a deck seat that Tommy had break during one of their private parties, there’s a carcass of what looks like a bashed-in bird, bigger than his torso. It let out a smell of flower instead of something rotten. He puts the shards he’d gathered beside it. He should dispose it safely this weekend, he makes a mental note.

The bird and the raven was lucky accidents. He would’ve missed the bird if it didn’t decide to stay in the woods when he went to search for it; he couldn’t imagine what would happen if it decides to wreak havoc in Hawkins...

Not that _that_ matters. He still hadn’t killed the first creature he dreamt off that week, the first that starts the string of nightmares that had followed him for almost a week. He’s lucky that the recent had been harmless—the one before this, even, was only a pot of flower that withers as soon as he tries to water it. But the first creature, a dog-like monster that he didn’t manage to kill...

He had searched for it for days; it was the reason he decided to skip school. He still couldn’t find it, even after hours in the woods, finding nothing but tracks of little harmless animals in the soil.

He wonders whether had brought it to the real world or had not, if he’s worried over nothing. After all, there was absolutely no sighting of the monster, days after, and you couldn’t really dismiss seing a creature like that as _normal_. Words travel in Hawkins quicker than you could go from the city line to another. If anyone had seen it in the woods, he probably would’ve heard the chatter by now

He convinces himself that it might not exist. He decides to get ready for school.

He’s late.

He knows he’s late.

He should care that he’s late.

He doesn’t know why he doesn’t care.

He didn’t even have any time to pick up Nancy even though he promised he would when he called her last night. He should apologize to her, his brain already racking for excuses he’s not even sure he needs. Nancy is caring and understanding, and he’d told her that he’s been sick for days, she probably guessed that he’s just not well enough, despite what he said last night.

The parking spot he’s usually in is used. Raising an eyebrow, he pauses for a second to try to gauge who has the guts to take over the unofficially reserved spot. He doesn’t recognize the car’s owner. The Camaro sticks out like rusted nail in the middle of the dull cars around it. It must be new.

He parks in an empty spot before turning off the car. The reflection in the rearview mirror stares back at him, sleeplessness hanging under his eyes: dark and blatant. He needs more sleep, but these days sleep means bigger possibility of more creatures, and he’s getting tired of running after things that shouldn’t exist. He can’t accidentally bring out a nightmare and it’s all been _nightmares_ upon _nightmares_ these days that he’s starting to miss the times in his younger days where all he brought were small, priceless trinkets: a zippo, a wooden stick, a wind-up toy that doesn’t work.

He gets out of his car with a curse in his lips.

“You look like shit, Steve,” Tommy remarks as they change outfits before basketball.

He shoves his change of clothes inside the locker. “Told you I wasn’t lying about being sick,” he replies. His head feels like it’s ringing. He has been spacing out the entire day, not concentrating at his class at all—not that he usually does, but it’s worse today—but talking to Tommy, although annoyance starts gnawing as soon as Tommy makes dirty remarks about something he doesn’t care about, makes him feel more like himself, like his soul is settling back to his body instead of floating through like a ghost.

It’s basketball, at least. He’s always able to use the practice to exhaust himself, making his sleep dreamless. He’s stretching when he notices unfamiliar blonde curls walking inside the court with a devilish grin, chatting freely with a bunch of other basketball kids that Steve’s not close with.

Steve nudges Tommy at that direction. “Who’s that?”

Tommy, who’s on the process of throwing a ball at Reed’s head, stops to pay attention. “Huh? Oh. That’s Billy Hargrove. From California or something—you’re _dead_ , Reed, don’t _try_ me—“

He tunes the fight out, easily, to look, or rather, to study the foreigner amidst the familiar faces he’d gotten used to over the years. He might not know everyone in Hawkins High, care even less, too much school hierarchies and shades of privilege to be able to even remember, and he remembers the Camaro that lodges itself into its territory this morning: Hargrove looks and carries himself exactly like it: showy, cocky, _intrusive_. When he laughs, it’s a low, charismatic guffaw with a sentence below its skin, _you laugh with me, or you’re getting laughed at._

It takes Steve a moment to look away, glossing over, his interest fading at once, already turning his attention to steal the ball from Tommy to stop whatever-the-fuck he was doing with Reed.

As the practice starts, his mind focuses on the ball, whether to shoot or to steal, something that’s so familiar and in tune with his body. Basketball is a dance for him, where his domination is graceful, body slipping from blocks and walls of people much larger than him, his footwork quick and unpredictable.

He’s trying to secure a three point when he hit a wall.

No, that’s not quite right—the wall _hits_ him _first_.

Half his breath is knocked out of his lungs, but he’s still able to maintain his position. The _wall_ is a toned body in his back, blocking him from moving. The chuckle near his ear is foreign, but he knows exactly who has done it.

He tries to shake him off. But it’s like Hargrove already knows how he plays just from watching him. It takes Hargrove little effort to steal the ball from him.

“So, you’re King Steve that everybody’s been telling me about,” he remarks, not even losing his breath while he manages to defend the ball from Steve. “But you’re not so tough, aren’t you?”

“Just play, man,” Steve grits his teeth and tries another steal only to realizes, a moment too late, that Hargrove has given him a feint. He could just dribble past him easily after that with Steve’s sense of balance swaying, unstable.

Hargrove does, but he also does another thing.

Hargrove _shoves_. It’s a harsh hit against his chest, knocking him and his concentration off balance.

The waxed floor is cold beneath his back, his ears ringing again. He gets up, but the ball is gone from his reach. Hargrove lays up and it gets in easily without even touching the rim. It’s _good_. Hargrove’s good, probably the kind of addition that their team needs. The other team cheers, but it’s not just them—he’s pretty sure most of the people is in awe with his play. Even Tommy, who’s supposed to be in Steve’s team, whoops and crowds near Hargrove, leaving Steve to stare.

His back hurts. He should be annoyed, competitive even. And he is.

Hargrove runs his tongue over his lower teeth, grins wolfishly at his direction.

Somewhere under competitiveness and annoyance, a hot sense of intrigue that plants his attention to the owner of those blonde curls. Steve continues to stare, even as Hargrove turns away.

The coach talks to him after the practice, mostly to discuss the state championship that’s coming up in a few months. He lingers after to tidy up a few balls that has been left in the edge of the court before heading to the locker room to shower. It’s empty when he walks in, something that he prefers more than staring at someone’s sweaty body and being the target of childish towel slap.

He takes out his soap and shampoo from his locker before he starts showering. The routine, that’s more of a muscle memory than a conscious decision, enables his mind to travel to the dream he has that day. The shadow is new. The dream doesn’t even seem like a nightmare, but the sense of dread that leaves him say otherwise. He tries to remember every detail as he pours a dollop of shampoo to his hand. It’s the expensive one that his mother had given him after her trip to France—he only uses it when nobody’s around.

The foam drips near his eyes. He closes it to avoid getting any inside.

“ _Cadenti porrigo dextram_.”

He freezes. In front of him, the shower, that’s still turned on, suddenly stops. He struggles with swiping the shampoo from his face for a few seconds before looking around.

The entire shower room is still empty and silent, but the words had been in his ears, almost like somebody has been in the room with him. He takes a step back to sweep his gaze all over the room. He sees no one.

A shiver runs along his spine.

_What the fuck?_

It’s Friday and he stops his car in front of Wheelers with an invitation to attend Tommy’s _party_. He’s even ready to talk with Mrs. Wheeler herself with promises of _I’ll drop her off safely after, I promise_ , when he sees Nancy in the garage, swinging a Little League bat that must’ve been her brother’s. Holding back a chuckle, he gets off his car and approaches her.

“I hope that’s not meant for me,” he japes. He has talked to Nancy about the way he’s failing on the whole ‘boyfriend-picking-up-girlfriend-to-school’ lately, but there’s still a gnawing sense of guilt in him when she told him she had missed first period the day before.

“Steve,” she smiles at him, putting the end of the bat to the floor. The smile widens as he leaves a soft peck on her lips. “What are you doing here?”

“What, can’t I see you practice on self-defense once in a while?” he nudges at the direction of the bat.

“Oh, it’s not, I was just...” she shakes her head, trailing the bat on the floor. “Thinking about joining softball.”

He raises an eyebrow at that, but decides not to press further. “Oh... posture’s pretty good, Nance,” he says with a serious tone, mentally flicking himself for the sentence. It’s almost worth it when he sees her laugh, a soft, serene sound, like a bell. “Well, Tommy has a party going on tonight, I’m wondering if you want to come with me,” he cuts quickly before he lost her.

“Oh. You should’ve told me earlier.” She frowns a little. “I have a group project with Jonathan this evening.”

“Jonathan?” His brows raise. “Jonathan _Byers_?”

If she picks up the change of tone, she doesn’t show it. “Yeah. It’s... art project we’re working on. I’m sorry—if you told me earlier today, I would probably be able to come.”

He tries not to look disappointed, taking a step closer. His finger trails on the bat while he shoots her a charming smile. “Well, it’s fine. If he does anything I’m sure you can handle him yourself.” He gestures at the bat, more a joke than a suggestion, though he’d be lying if there’s no implication under it. “You’re swinging pretty hard before, I mean.”

“No, no, I get what you mean,” she laughs. “I won’t need to, though, Jonathan’s very nice, actually, if people _try_ a little to get to know him better.” She tiptoes and kisses his cheek. “I hope the party’s fun, Steve. Sorry for not being able to come.”

Steve can’t help but smile. Being with Nancy sometimes make him feel normal, like his dreams don’t mean anything but something out of his subconscious, where his sleep produces nothing but a memory he’ll forget as soon as he’s awake.

“It’s okay, Nance,” Steve decides on that. “Would’ve been better if you’re around, though.”

Well, sometimes he _lies_.

He’s smoking a joint on the childish swing that Tommy has in his backyard, a relic of past where Tommy and him used to hide cigarette smoke in middle school. He had lingered near Tommy and Carol until they decided to go somewhere private to have sex, participated in a game of keg stand until somebody decided to break his score after he had gone off to wash stickiness of beer from his chin, before he settled on some alone time.

He knows, if Nancy was around, he wouldn’t be caught dead smoking something other than the cigarettes he always has inside his pocket. Even then, when he’s only smoking cigarettes, he could still see in his mind her brow raising and her nose scrunching adorably at the smoke.

The sky is bright and scattered with stars. It’s beautiful no matter how much he’s seen it, even though he forgets it often once he’s distracted with something else. The buzz of alcohol is still pooling in his stomach, his head lighter, not anxiously racing and stressing over his day-to-day life and his _night_ life. He relaxes even further to the swing, feeling like he’s floating, floating away from Hawkins, to a place where everything is safe and he doesn’t feel the need to be scared if he closes his eyes.

A cough. His sight is ruined.

“You have a lighter?”

He turns and sees Hargrove, leaning against the metal rod of the swing, a cigarette pressed between his lips. It’s Marlboro, from the looks of it. Steve stares at him for a moment. He’s wearing a button down that’s far _too_ open for the weather, showing off his chest and halfway down, his necklace shining under the dim light.

“Sure,” he searches roughly at his pocket, pulling out loose change and a chapstick before he pulls out his zippo. He throws it at Hargrove, who accepts it gracefully.

Hargrove runs his thumb against the engraving. “This looks expensive. Never seen this design before. Nothing cheap for King Steve, huh?”

Steve resist the urge to roll his eyes. It’s not that it’s expensive, it’s that it’s _priceless_ and one of a kind. The zippo was one of the first thing he’d successfully brought back from his dreams—the lighter fluid never runs out, even years after. “It’s not expensive. It’s just a special gift from someone,” he remarks. He wishes that Hargrove would just go. He was really enjoying being _alone_.

From the way Hargrove is leaning against the swing, the fire from Steve’s lighter lighting up his cigarette, seems like he’s going nowhere. He takes a drag, his other hand still stroking the symbol in the zippo.

Steve decides to ignore him instead, enjoying his blunt until it runs out.

He’s still lightly swinging when Hargrove suddenly asks: “You ever heard scary stories about the woods in Hawkins?”

“Scary stories? What, like bigfoot or something?” He scoffs.

“No, not like bigfoot. This is _real_ shit, Harrington.” The light from his cigarette illuminates one part of his face, his bright blue eyes like a fire in the dark. “Have you experienced it, something unbelievable that you just _have_ to go toward and check?”

“Never seen anything,” he lies for the second time that day.

“Well, I did. I was near the woods this morning, driving. I saw a bright light in the woods.”

Steve can feel a cold running through his veins. “Looks like there’s a party in the woods.”

“No, I would know if it was a party. It was a purple light. Too bright to be anything normal.”

“You must be seeing shit, Hargrove. Must be stronger than this,” he throws the blunt without a care to Tommy’s family bush. His fingers trembled despite his calmness. “Care to inform a guy where you purchased it?”

Hargrove stares at him with lips pressed together. “Haven’t you heard that there’s something big flying in the sky a day ago, too? Vicki said she saw something flying on the sky, but it wasn’t completely visible and it had no lights, so it couldn’t have been a plane.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” Steve tries, but even he can tell it sounds weak.

A moment of silence passes over them before Hargrove scoffs. “If you say so. Have some imagination, Harrington. Stories’ all that we have in this hick town.” He throws the lighter back without warning and it lands over Steve’s khaki; he manages to wrap his hand around it before it falls down.

He shouldn’t worry, he knows. He’s taken care of the bird and he’s taken care of the raven, too. It doesn’t matter how much people had seen it—though his father always warned him to be careful—when he had already taken care of the creature.

“Jesus, this party’s quite shit,” Billy remarks suddenly, interrupting his thoughts. “Wanna go find something to eat? I’ll drive.”

That was how he found himself outside of a fairly-dead at 2 AM local McDonalds, with Billy Hargrove, eating fries with too much salt on it, and an empty, eaten package of apple pie on the ground.

He doesn’t say anything when he sees that the Camaro _is_ Hargrove’s, even though he wanted to. Taking a sip of the Coke, he finds his gaze on the sky again. He hopes he only dream of it, if he does dream at all. He knows that usually alcohol helps, but sometimes it makes things worse.

He’s munching, quite disgustingly, at a piece of fry, pushing the flesh off the skin with his front teeth to his tongue when Hargrove, who’s been silent for a little as he eats two Big Mac by himself, suddenly disturbs it: “I didn’t only see the purple light.”

Steve coughs around the fry. He spits at the ground. “What else did you hallucinate.” He tries to sound casual, and he knows he’s failing miserably.

“I was smoking near the edge of the quarry about two days ago, it’s a pretty bright night, you know, you could see the moon in the surface of the water,” Hargrove starts. He sucks on his Pepsi for a second before continuing, “I saw something in the water, swimming. I thought the water was just playing tricks in my eyes.”

“Then?”

“It roared.”

Steve mind runs at once, surveying the detail of his first nightmare. The dog creature. The _roar_ that chills him to the bone. The fact that he can’t find it even after searching for days.

“What kind of roar?”

“It sounds guttural. You know, like, _wild_.”

“Did you see it again? What happens after? How big is it?”

Hargrove’s eyes dart at him for the first time for a while. Brow raised, he remarks, “What, you’re into monster hunting now, Harrington? Wasn’t you the one who’s been dismissing my _scary stories_ earlier?”

He kicks the sole Hargrove’s Converse lightly. “I’m just _curious_ what kind of drugs you’re smoking.”

Hargrove scoffs. “Would’ve been nice if I wasn’t, but I was completely _sober_ , Harrington.”

Steve presses his lips. He’s silent for a moment, thinking, before settling on a “Yeah, right.”

He’s in the edge of the quarry, again, staring down at the darkness. His body moves without his command as he walks closer and closer to the edge. The night is bright enough this time: he can see the surface of the water, can see the moon reflected on it. It’s strange; the liquid was dark and murky, almost unlike water.

He freezes when he sees something disturbing the reflection, something swimming towards his direction. His blood runs cold as he realizes that it’s the _creature_. It’s getting closer by the second. He turns back and sees the forest, the trees swaying and whispering the same words again and again, walking closer, _cadenti porrigo dextram_...

The creature roars. It arrives at the edge, its claws stabbing the rocks as it starts to climb.

This is a dream, he reminds himself. He needs to wake up. Yet his body doesn’t do anything. One foot steps to the air. He falls—

Then, a familiar voice: “Wake up, Harrington.”

He wakes. His back stings from an uncomfortable position. He looks around to his sides and realizes that he’s in the back of somebody’s car, before his mind starts supplying him with answers. Hargrove’s smoking at the front, one side of his face directed at him, smelling like cigarette smoke and something woody. The entire car smells like him, but it gets stronger from his direction.

“Morning, sleeping beauty,” he greets.

They’re near the quarry, he realizes. His memory is still fuzzy, but he’s able to remember pieces, like smoking his leftover joint with Hargrove, the two of them laughing over something while leaning over the cap of Hargrove’s Camaro. Waiting for something.

“Saw a monster last night?” He asks as soon as he remembers. The tone is exercised, almost mocking, mostly bored, though his voice is still deep from sleeping. He’s lucky he doesn’t summon anything else.

“’Fraid not. Fell asleep like you did, princess,” Hargrove slurs as he blows a smoke towards outside.

“You must’ve been dreaming about what you saw, then.”

“Oh, I _know_ when I’m dreaming and when I’m not,” Hargrove remarks flatly, and there’s something about the sentence that stings Steve’s chest.

“It still could have been hallucination.”

Hargrove stares at him from the rearview mirror. “You’d believe me if you see it with your own eyes?”

“Monsters are just not _real_ , Hargrove,” he replies, and sometimes he wishes he doesn’t have to lie. Sometimes he wishes that what he says is just simply the truth.

“You’re so dull, King Steve, as boring as this fucking place.”

“I’m dull because I don’t believe in your made-up stories?”

A frown forms in Hargrove’s lips, something dangerous, something that sends a chill towards Steve’s neck. But he doesn’t budge. He stares back at the reflection, his expression disinterested, like he could take whatever Hargrove could throw at him.

“Why does it matter _so much_ to you anyway if I’m telling the truth or not?” Hargrove throws the cigarette butt somewhere. “It doesn’t affect you in the slightest, Harrington.”

Steve falls silent. “Let’s go back,” he answers instead, after a beat and long stare exchanged between them.

“Sure.” Hargrove almost sounds disappointed. “Move to the front. I’m not a fucking taxi, asshole.”

He knows he would go back to the quarry, but he doesn’t need Billy Hargrove to do so. He'll handle it, by himself, like he always does.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little note, I jumbled the storyline a little because as I said before, timeline is hard when you're inserting something new on it, and sometimes you can't keep track of what's happening, but you know.

His father is the one who inherited the gift to him. Looking back at it, his excitement if he found a familiar, yet entirely new object that he created out of nothing, was so naïve and sheltered that sometimes he curls around himself and tugs at his hair until it hurts just to _forget_. He remembers feeling _special_. He remembers feeling that at last, he has something in common with his father.

His hand trembles as he picks up the pill bottle that slipped from his hand. It lays miserably on his bathroom sink, the container opened, scattering its content to the white marble.

He knows the dream would be worse, but something in his brain doesn’t work, _sometimes_ , and hell, it would’ve been _too fucking perfect_ if his life is normal, isn’t it?

It’s the weekend, too early to do anything but going back to sleep, but his body is already clean from the shower and he needs to take care of what’s left from the dream creatures that are still hidden inside his family’s tool shed. He wishes that it would just die and disappear on its own, but _alas_ , his life sucks and he only has himself.

Nothing new with that.

He drives himself to the quarry, the familiar road filling him with a sense of dread that he can’t quite place. His mind flies to Hargrove, again, with his fist curled in the steering wheel, his knuckle white, not even looking at him as they talked briefly as they were on the way to Tommy’s. His Beemer was still left where he left it, an outline of a thick penis traced in the dusty front window. He remembered, it was the first time Hargrove’s eyes was on him after the entire ride.

He had said, “Clean up your car, Harrington. Do you want to ruin the paint or something?” before speeding away, leaving only the sound of his gas in the air.

The first time Steve did after driving back home was spraying water all over his car.

He didn’t know why he bothered, he realizes, as dirt from the harsher road to the direction of the quarry starts dirtying the sides of his car again, it isn’t as if he’d meet Hargrove by some kind of coincidence and gets another comment about how _dirty_ his car is. Even Nancy doesn’t seem to mind, usually, and he knows her as prim and proper. When she found a stray wax paper of a burger last week, she only wordlessly crumpled it in her hand and threw it away without so much as a glance or a nag.

_Fine_.

He stops a hundred meters on the shallower end of the quarry before opening the back of his car. Pulling out a black garbage bag, he starts dragging it to the direction of the water before pushing the content inside it.

The carcass slowly sinks as he watches.

He’s lighting a cigarette when he looks up to find someone standing at the edge of the quarry. His lighter stops short in his fingers as he squints, trying to make out the shape of the human.

His eyesight fails him.

Carol always said that he needs to get himself a prescription glasses whenever he tries to read something by holding it too close to his face because the line always blurs out of focus. He always said he’s _fine_. He can still drive at night without crashing into a tree and can still make out a clock from the other side of the room. Now, though, he’s not too sure. Maybe Carol is right.

He’s driving back to Loch Nora when he encounters a beat-up Ford LTD parked in the side of the road. He slows down, recognizing the dull gray-green paint as Byers’, Byers as in the-one-who-was-with-Nancy-two-nights-ago. He raises an eyebrow at it, wondering what Byers could be doing at this early in the morning on the side of the road, when he makes a mental reminder to himself that he’s _also_ doing the same thing, and he wants to be left alone and not asked about why, thank you very much.

Regardless, he ends up stopping his ride and approaching the Ford, cringing at the harsh marks on the side of Byers’ car, seemingly more like getting _clawed_ by something sharp rather than a result of being hit.

Steve hand flinches.

This is near the quarry, too... but it had been fine a day ago. He stayed there with Hargrove until morning and found nothing. If the creature is still there, if it’s still alive, he would’ve probably saw it before. But Hargrove said he didn’t see anything, so there’s just no pressing notion that the creature is still around the woods somewhere.

Besides, if there’s a feral creature running around, he’s sure he’ll be able to hear about it by now.

Yet, he decides to call Nancy as soon as he gets home.

The Wheeler boy, this shithead whose favorite thing to do whenever Steve visits the Wheeler’s is to throw him a stink eye, picks up at the third ring. He asks for Nancy at once, not even bothering with any sweet words when Mike says:

“Nancy’s not home.”

“At this early in the morning?” he glares vaguely at the direction of the family picture that hangs near his telephone. It’s not as early as before, but it’s still before 9. “Where did she go?”

“She’s been sleeping over at Barb’s house since Friday,” a pause, “I think.”

“What?”

“I _think_ she’s still there. She hasn’t come home yet.”

“No, no, man, I heard you,” his grip tightens around the telephone, the other hand worrying the cable until it curls snugly around his pointer finger, “she hasn’t been home since Friday _night_?”

“And you said you heard me,” Nancy’s brother deadpans disinterestedly from the other line. “Yes, Friday night, _Steve_.” The way he says it, he might as well call him _dickhead_.

Steve’s halfway into hanging up entirely before realizing that he should have manners. He probably should have _manners_ , right? Be the bigger person, treat the baby brother of his girlfriend nicely, her not telling him the whole truth aside. “Oh. Okay. Thanks then,” he says with a smile.

Mike Wheeler, the little shit, hangs up first without the gall of replying.

Mike should thank his luck that he’s Nancy’s little brother.

He’s in the woods. There’s a small stream near his feet, filling the air with the sound of rushing water. He decides to sit down and lets the cold-water trickle against his skin. Closing his eyes, he tries to listen to the sounds of the forest, of sing-songs of birds in the autumn air, crackles of dry leaves, and a _laugh_ , disembodied, all-around him.

This is a dream, he realizes. The borders of his sight are too fuzzy and he can’t think of why he’s here at the first place, the tell-tale sign of a dream when it’s too close to the reality. It used to be so hard to differentiate, especially when he was younger, and he’d found himself crying in the middle of the night because the dream was just too real, like he could touch it, thinking he’s been left alone in the middle of the night, or his parents or friends dying. Now, he’s used to it, eyes and subconscious trained to observe from experience.

He pulls out his hand, running his thumb against it, but his skin is completely dry, like he hasn’t touched the water at all. Definitely. Definitely a dream.

A wind blows against his face, blowing brown leaves all around him, harsh but not yet unwelcome. He watches as the leaves form a humanoid figure in the autumn air. It’s a _him_ , he knows. The figure is almost the same height as him, with wide chest and thick arms.

“ _Scio quid estis vos_ ,” his voice is deep and rumbling when he talks, like a wild, old thing, but void of animalistic characteristics; if anything, it’s steadfast, like a tree that’s been growing for centuries. “Do you?”

Steve is suddenly hit by the realization of how _unwelcome_ this creature is, how foreign: it isn’t from here, and it certainly isn’t from _him_.

He stands up. “Wait. What does that mean,” he can feel himself waking up, the image blurring from his sight, the world fading into black. “ _Wait_ —“

He wakes up on his couch, the television on the lowest volume, showing reruns of cartoon he doesn’t quite know. Steve sighs, running his fingers through his brown locks, pressing his lips together. There’s anxiety filling his stomach, gnawing on empty; he hadn’t had the effort to cook something up earlier—not that it’s going to be anything special, if any it’s, as it always is, going to be the usual, months-worth of pancake mix that he stocked in his shelves—and he still doesn’t have the energy now.

The diner, he decides. It’s past 12 and probably too late for brunch, but he’s craving a pancake that doesn’t taste like sawdust with a topping of chocolate syrup that he’s so sick off after eating it for two weeks in a row.

A younger Steve would marvel at the possibility of adding as much chocolate syrup in his diet as he’d like, but nowadays he just thinks that it’s just making him closer to developing early diabetes under the age of 20.

Jesus, he’s getting older.

When he arrives at the only local diner in town, though, he almost backs out when he sees the Wheeler kid huddled over inside a booth beside the _only_ empty one. Mike’s not alone, he’s sitting beside Dustin, who Steve used to babysit one summer during his parents’ divorce; Sinclair, the one that is actually _mature_ without being an asshole, unlike Mike; the younger Byers that he honestly knows next to nothing about, and a girl with red locks tied into a high ponytail. They all look serious, or as serious as twelve year olds can be, at least, leaning over table full of sugary foods and beverages as they talk with brows furrowed.

Against his better judgement, he approaches the booth. All six kids look up at him. _Wait_. Six? The sixth one is lanky with short buzzed hair on her head, sitting in the far corner of the booth, obstructed by Dustin’s body, and he almost mistakes her for a boy if he doesn’t see the pink dress she’s wearing.

“Steve Harrington,” Mike retorts, way too sarcastic even for Steve’s liking.

“Hey, guys,” his eyes glosses over from the weird girl before turning to the little Byers. “Will, right? I was wondering if you’ve seen Jonathan today.” When he doesn’t get an answer right away, he adds: “I think he has some pictures of me playing basketball and my mother asked me for some...”

“You’re _Steve_?” the redheaded girl cuts before he can even finish.

He squints at her. “Yeah, who are you, random girl?” He’s never seen her before, either, but truthfully, he doesn’t keep track of the young children in Hawkins, so he’s ready to be proven wrong.

The girl only frowns at him, but with a brow raised, like Steve is being left out of a joke he doesn’t understand.

“I don’t think I’ve seen him since yesterday,” Will says after the entire table stays silent. “But... I can tell him you’re looking for him when I do?”

That means, that’s the both of them unaccounted for. Steve knows he should be feeling anything more than a slightest hint of exasperation and annoyance of being left out of something, but he remembers the abandoned car and thinks maybe he should be more _worried_ than _angry_.

“That’s perfect, thank you,” he flashes his most charming smile before turning back to the whole group, “listen. I’d love to hear dragon stories from you lot, but honestly, I’m starving right now, so...”

“Oh, by all means, don’t let us keep you here,” Mike replies sweetly. “I’ll offer you a seat but I think you’ll rather be alone, don’t _you_?”

He’s weighing the consequences of stealing Mike’s milkshake altogether just to spite the kid when he has to remind himself that he’s supposed to be the _adult_ here. Instead, he leaves them and sits on the empty booth next to theirs all by himself and orders the late brunch menu, consisting of so much _sugar_ that he starts wondering if his visit here, stemming from the fact that he needs to stop snorting chocolate syrup at home, is utterly unproductive.

He’s halfway through his double-decker waffles when he hears, “Yes, Max, I’m completely sure it’s not just a mountain lion. There’s no mountain lion around Hawkins.”

“You sure?” A girl-voice asks back.

“It has _small_ teeth and it doesn’t look like a fucking cat!” If most of the diner isn’t hearing their talk by now, Dustin’s exasperated half-yell ensured they probably should. He hears one of them shushes him. “You suck at _charades_ ,” he adds unconvincingly, louder than before.

He may have lost most people’s attention, but Steve’s ear is perked, now. He leans back to the back of his chair and listens.

“Not normal here,” the voice of another girl, calmer this time, ensures. “Not from here.”

“You sure, El?”

“I’m sure.”

“If El says so, then,” the first girl voice replies.

“I still don’t know why we don’t just tell adults about this,” it’s Sinclair’s voice this time.

“Max barely believes us and you want to tell adults?”

“It isn’t like we can do anything to the creature.”

“We can do something,” Dustin talks again, “We trap it. Somehow. And if we find it first we can claim it as ours, we’ll get to name it, too.”

“It looks dangerous, though,” says Byers.

“It’s dangerous,” the calmer girl, El, adds.

Before they can continue their argument, Steve peeks from between their booths and says, “Man, if all of you are going to be discreet about this, at the very least try to make sure no one’s listening in to your conversation.”

“We’re playing D&D right now. What’s there to be discreet about?” Sinclair manages to lie with a straight face, _quite_ convincing, if Steve doesn’t know what the fuck they’re talking about. Steve’s favorite of the group might be Dustin, but he’s known Dustin Henderson since he’s still a prepubescent _teen_ the same age as them, and Dustin gives him candy bars whenever they are hanging out. If he’s not biased he might pick Lucas as the one he’s most likely to be friends with.

“Yeah, right,” Steve rolls his eyes. “Look, I can help you.”

“What’s in it for you?” Mike asks suspiciously.

Steve thinks for a moment. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t think all of you would prefer getting killed by a dangerous animal before you can enjoy the ups and downs of high school. I’m not sure you’re adult enough to understand—“

“Don’t talk to us about adulthood, Harrington, you have cream on your lips,” the redhead, Max, cuts him with a sharp smile. She’s like a bear cub; not exactly menacing, but it’s a promise of _something_ more.

There’s something familiar about this girl, something that pokes him, but he just can’t place why. He must’ve seen her before, somewhere. He wipes his upper lip with the back of his hand. It comes off with an airy cream that’s definitely from his waffles. Goddamnit. Way to make an impression.

“Yeah,” he says after making sure there’s no food left in his face, “but I also have a _baseball bat_ on the back of my car. Anyway, if you’re going to the woods, I’m coming with you, whether you like it or not.” A pause. “After I finish my waffles, that is.”

The El girl stares at him, and he’s pretty sure that’s a smile at the corner of her lips.

They’re walking along the abandoned tracks in the woods—none of them are even sure what it’s supposed to be for, but it’s an ingrained part of their childhood at this point, a line connecting one place with another—Steve’s in the back, twirling his bat in his right hand, watching around them cautiously. The kids think he’s showing off. Truth is, he’s anxious and _scared_ , but being accompanied by a bunch of teens that doesn’t seem to be scared at the prospect of searching for a dangerous animal, he has to pretend like it doesn’t bother him.

Then again, they don’t exactly know what they’re dealing with.

The grip on his bat slips for a moment. He manages to catch it, but not before it clinks against the steel of the train tracks, earning attention from the girls that’s walking near the back, side by side.

El lingers while Max walks ahead, catching up with Lucas. Steve glances at her as they begin to walk side by side, goes back to twirling the bat again.

“I know,” she starts, “You are Greywaren.”

He almost drops the bat for the second time, but it stops in the air, and floats back inside his palm.

“You’re not alone,” she says. “I’m a friend of the forest. You are one of its children. I’ll help.”

“Do they know—?” he gestures at the other children. He wonders if El is a child at all.

“I don’t think so,” El looks sullen, frowning at the distance. “But someone does. Someone has been messing with the forest. Not you. You are Greywaren. Be careful, Steve.”

She’s walking ahead, when he says, “Are you—have you visited my dreams?”

El turns back to him, and shakes her head. “No. I’m different from you. I can’t touch dreams.” She walks, and as she holds Mike’s hand, he sees her smile and knows for sure how young she is, yet how wise.

_Greywaren_ has been a word that his father taught him once he starts pulling things out of his dream. _Greywaren_ meant a sheltered childhood where there’s no such things as “napping in the kindergarten”, always awake as his friends sleep snugly. _Greywaren_ meant getting picked up in expensive car under the watchful eyes of his parents when he was younger, meant that he has to lay low and be normal, at least as normal as any teenagers can be. _Greywaren_ meant he’s more likely to be kidnapped and held for ransom if it anyone ever knows what he is, means it’s dangerous for him to simply _be_.

Steve has always been good at pretending everything is normal. Steve has always been good at hiding his mess, acting like he’s just one of those teenagers like _Tommy_ , who has nothing in his dreams but naked power fantasies and nothing sort of magical. He has to be normal, because being anything but makes him vulnerable.

He remembers the whispers. The figure in his dreams.

His grip on the bat _tightens_ until his palm starts hurting.

He realizes he is very scared.

They arrive at the destination: it’s the designated place for most people in Hawkins to abandon their unused or broken cars, a junkyard of metal of some sorts. It’s silent in there. It’s a perfect place for kids like Mike Wheeler and Dustin Henderson to play. It’s somewhere Steve Harrington hasn’t been before.

“So, who saw the creature before? Are you sure it’s coming?” Steve asks as he puts the bat on his shoulder.

“We did,” Dustin gestures at the general direction of the party, Max not included. “With all the meat we left back there? Of course, it is. It isn’t like there’s a lot of wild animals in Hawkins, and what we left is a free-for-all.” To accentuate his point, Dustin pours the rest of the meat inside the bucket he’s been holding to the ground. It stacks into a lump consisting of various kind of meat.

“Now what?” Max asks.

“Well, now we wait. Anyone wants Three Muskeeters?”

It’s night already and they’re still waiting, sitting inside the abandoned school bus. Steve sits in the floor, fiddling with his zippo nervously, flicking it on and off, when El approaches him, much to Mike’s discontent. Even from the low light, Steve can see the glare he’s throwing at him, as if Steve would be interested in liking twelve year olds, _calm down, Wheeler_.

“You can call it out,” she says. “You’re its master, you know.”

He raises his brow at her. “You can’t say this earlier when there’s still sun outside?”

“I was waiting for you to stop being scared. You haven’t been able to find it because you are. You don’t want to face it, so your mind commands it away. Makes sense?”

“How does that make sense?”

“You are Greywaren. Nothing about you are supposed to.”

He finds himself smiling at that sentence. “I suppose, when this end, you can explain how you know everything. And what you are...”

She looks down at her hand and mutters. “What I am is impossible. But maybe, when it does end, I’ll be able to tell you about the forest.” She touches her hand above his, before stepping back, gesturing outside.

Steve thinks she’s crazy.

Yet, he steps out of the bus with his bat in his right hand, into the mist that envelops the cold air. He stands near the stack of meat. He can hear the hushed talk on the back. He can hear the wind in his ear, the rush of blood under it, the beating of his heart.

"What the hell is Steve doing?" He hears Max says.

"Expanding the menu, hopefully?" Mike supplies.

"He's _stupid._ He shouldn't—"

He tunes the words out and _waits_.

El says he’s its master, but the creature has been created from him. It was inside his head and he brings it out to the real world, creating it out of his sheer imagination and magic.

It doesn’t make him its master, it makes him its _God_.

He’s killed the things he created before. He can do it again.

“Come out,” he mutters to himself. “Here I am.”

There’s a growl at the other side of the junkyard, where the trees start and the field ends. There’s a shadow emerging, bathed in moonlight. Steve’s not scared anymore. His grip tightens and he’s readying himself to hit, like he always does, when something in him turns cold.

Another shadow emerges with the other one, skulking.

He is hit by the same feeling he has in his dreams before towards the humanoid creature: how foreign it is. His creatures has an air of familiarity to it, of deja vu, things that makes him calm, stops his hand from trembling, even as he swing the sentence. The raven, especially, but even the gigantic bird stomach no threats for him.

These things are dangerous.

These things aren’t _his_.

“Steve!” Lucas yells from behind him. “Three o’clock! _Three o’clock_!”

He turns and something lands a few inches behind. He sees the same creature in his dream squirming in the ground, growling and snarling at him, before darting his eyes at the top of the school bus: El has her palm opened to his direction, like she’s pushing something down to the ground.

“Steve, _come here_!” Dustin is in the door of the bus, signalling him to get in, but the other two creatures is running towards him now, and his body moves to whack one of them on their faces.

He narrowly avoids the other one. He runs and uses the momentum to jump over the hood of a car. Stumbles and hits his arm on something. It hurts.

This is not a dream.

He wants to wake up anyway.

It’s a narrow miss of a snarl when he manages to reach the bus. Quickly, he closes the door off, preventing the creature from getting inside but also trapping them inside. He turns to El, who’s getting down inside from the roof of the bus.

“Those are not _mine_ —“ he tells her.

Something climbs on the top of the bus. Its growl is low and foreign, guttural. There’s a smell of flowers in the air that Steve doesn’t notice before. He makes his way to the open hatch, pushing the kids away from it.

The creature looks down at them and roars, its head opening up. There’s shards of purple crystal inside its mouth. It glows violet in the dim light.

Steve stills, his mind racing.

El holds it still with her mind. She’s beside him, scowling.

“No,” she mutters, low enough to not be able to be heard by the others, but loud enough for Steve to hear. There’s blood trickling down one of her nostrils. “Those are not yours, Steve. Not exactly.”

She keeps her hand still when there’s a sound of whistle in the air. The creature tries to move, but El only pulls her hand up and down in a slamming motion, slamming the creature into the roof a couple of times until the metal is dented and it stops making a sound.

Once it’s silent outside and they don’t hear anything growling anymore, they step out of the bus. What’s left outside is only the mist and the cold night air. Lucas pushes the unconscious creature off the roof to the ground. It falls with a wet, squishy sound.

Steve slams his bat on the creature. He starts to think that he needs something more dangerous. It’s not moving anymore, but he hits it a couple of more time just to make sure.

“Steve,” Dustin holds his wrist. “Oh my god, it’s fucking dead, alright? Calm down.”

“You’re right,” Max says after she stares at it for a few minutes. She bites her lower lip. There's something unreadable in her face, guarded. “That’s definitely not a mountain lion.”

Dustin rolls his eyes in what’s most likely to be a non-verbal _what-did-I-say_?

Steve rests the tip of the bat on the ground, his mind reeling. He’s only dreamt of one creature. How can there be more now? It hasn’t happened before. And the crystal inside its mouth... isn’t that... isn’t that from the raven?

“We need to talk,” he turns to El.

“I said, when it ends,” El answers.

“No. _Now_.” He snaps, loud, making the others flinch.

Mike steps between them and glares at him. Steve glares back.

“Look, I don’t know what you are to this girl, but what I want to talk about to her doesn’t have any fuck to do with you—“

Then, before he can finish his sentence: a gunshot rings in the air, clear.

The kids start running to that direction before he can even pick his bat up from the floor. He curses inside his head as he stumbles on a rock on a ground. They arrive to the scene of the crime before he does: it’s a small clearing at the edge of the forest, showered by moonlight, and Nancy and Jonathan is standing over something, side by side. She’s holding what seems to be a handgun pointed out at a lump of meat between them.

Steve’s sight falls on it first. It’s one of the dog creatures, the creature that isn't his but seems like his, an abomination that used to be from his mind.

Jesus Christ, how many is _there_?

“Steve?” Nancy exclaims. She squints at the sight of him and the kids, surprised.

“Yeah,” he mutters darkly. His glance darts to Jonathan, who’s standing near Nancy, too close for comfort. They're both slightly wet and shivering, a man's jacket over Nancy's shoulder, the skin under their eyes dark. They look tired, but Steve adds, anyway: “Yeah, it’s me. Some group project you got here.”

They’re in the Byers house when Nancy started to explain what the two of them were doing. Steve listens with his hand still gripping tightly at his bat as Nancy explains how she was in fact on the way to the Byers house to do a group project a few days ago, when Steve was sick, when something runs into the side of Jonathan’s car.

They decided to chase it for the _story_ , Jonathan explains. Alien creature in the middle of a quiet town? Seems impossible to believe, but not with a _picture_. The gun had been Jonathan’s father’s, and it seems like an appropriate thing to have when you’re hunting something that leaves that big of claw marks on the side of the car.

“But the woods,” Nancy continues. She’s still shivering though she has the jacket she was wearing (Jonathan's jacket, Steve knows) wound tight around her. “There’s something weird about the woods. It... we got lost for a night, and we’re just finding our way when you guys show up.”

They got lost? _Right_.

Steve is seething, fire burning under his skin, but he doesn’t let it show. His thumb runs over the bat. Nancy says that there’s nothing, but she’s been sitting beside Jonathan for the entirety of the story, their knees _touching_ , and Steve doesn’t want to assume, but _God_.

He just wants to go home.

But El has been flanked by Will and Mike the entire time, and he needs explanation from her, but he’s pretty sure Mike’s not letting him do anything after he snaps at her like that.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, it’s fine, I believe you,” he says, more of a dismissal than understanding, and he’s pretty sure the entirety of the house hears it. “I want to go home. This is too much—too much for me to process in a day. Anybody wants a ride?” He asks at the direction of the kids, meets El’s eyes, hoping she’ll take the bait.

“Me,” Dustin starts.

“Beside you,” he glances at the others.

There’s a heavy silence from all over the room. Nancy avoids his eyes. It goes unsaid that she can tell he’s angry and doesn’t know him well enough to trust him to drop her at home. Slightly, she shifts closer to Jonathan. He almost laughs at that. Not that it's any of her fault, considering he's been holding on to the bat with his dear life. He must've looked _insane,_ angry, and dangerous.

“Actually,” Max raises her hand, “Can you drop me off as well? It's way past my curfew.”

Steve let his gaze sweep at the general direction of the room. After making sure nobody’s up for it, he says, “Alright. Max and Dustin then.”

Dustin’s home is closer, so he drops Dustin first, and almost regrets it when an air of awkward silence hangs between him and the redhead he doesn’t even know. The last words they exchanged had been her telling him her address and him saying “ _alright_ ”. The houses turn more narrower and the garden larger as he drives into Old Cherry Road. He's humming to a song from the radio when suddenly Max breaks the silence:

“Why did you get out of the bus like that?”

He glances at her before asking back, “What do you mean?”

“You don’t know what you’re facing, yet you get out with only that bat in your hand and does it anyway.”

He goes silent, not sure how to answer. He thought he know what he’s up against. But the creature had been violent, weird, and not _his_ , and he’s not even sure if he has the guts to go for it again.

“I don’t know, Max,” he mutters. “Maybe I just crave the embrace of _death_.”

To his surprise, Max snorts loudly at that. “You know, you remind me a lot of my stepbrother. Turn there. The house on the right.”

His Beemer stops in front of the house and he almost chokes on his own spit.

He sees the Camaro first and then the figure smoking on the porch, his blond curls shining under the dying light. Billy Hargrove looks up and raises his eyebrow at the car, flicking his cigarette to the grass.

“You didn’t tell me you're related to Hargrove,” he turns to Max.

Max adjusts the strap of her bag. “Wait, you know _Billy_? Are you two friends?”

“Friends? No, no. I’m pretty sure he _hates_ me.”

There’s something in Max’s face that shifts, unreadable, and her gaze isn’t on him now but behind him. He turns and Billy’s leaning against his door, staring down at him, daring him to open the window.

Steve rolls down his window and stares back.

“A bit weird for a high schooler to be with a middle schooler at this time of the night, doesn’t it?” Billy slurs, smelling like the cigarette that’s now missing from his hand.

“Don’t worry, nothing’s up. I just happen to be at the Byers’ and Max was there,” Steve replies calmly. “I offered her a ride. You can ask her. I did nothing else untoward.”

Max steps out of his car and walks towards the direction of the house. “C’mon, _Billy_. He’s just dropping me off.”

Billy doesn’t move from his position. He tilts his head. “You look pale. You sure you’re okay, Harrington?” He pauses, his finger hovering on Steve’s shoulder, almost touching but not, making Steve shivers. “You sure you’re not lying?”

“ _Billy,_ ” Max urges.

“Yeah, alright, give me a fucking moment, shitbird,” Billy yells over his shoulder. He glares at Max’s direction before turning back at Steve. He pushes himself from the car and smiles at him, wolfish, and Steve suddenly is remembering why Max’s smile is so familiar. They don’t look like siblings, but the way they carry themselves does; he’s more jagged edges than she is, but smiling like that, there’s something similar haunting their faces, the hint of a ghost that mirrors each other.

“I’m leaving,” Steve says, hand turning to roll up the window, but then Billy’s hand lands on the window, preventing it from going up.

He whistles, loud and familiar.

Steve stares at him in surprise.

“Be careful, King Steve,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “Lots of monsters out there.”

With that, he turns back to the house, leaving the smell of autumn air and cigarette smoke behind him.

His exhaustion and low gas content aside, Steve goes back to the junkyard in effort to dispose the body of the creature to the quarry, like he always does, like what his father always teaches him, because _you know that your creature is not from this reality and it’ll be a bother if anyone else finds out, right? You’re a hunted creature, Steven, and you’ll get killed or worse if anyone finds out what you are_.

His father never told him what " _or worse_ " meant, but he doesn't really want to find out.

All the years of hiding reduced into a few days of nightmares and El’s knowing gaze on him.

He stops near the bus and shines a flashlight on the ground. Then he circles it a few times. His hands start trembling. He finds _nothing_ but soil and junk.

The body of the creature is not there. Either it’s still alive or someone had stolen it. And _considering_ that he’s whacked it for at least ten times, it’s unlikely that it’s still running around at this point.

“I’m in such deep shit,” he mutters to himself.

The silence screams back at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and that's the first instalment done. I should be writing more soon, but let's see. I know there's not much of Harringrove *yet*, but we'll get there, I promise.
> 
> Next story is supposed to be in Billy's POV, so! We'll find out more about him... and what he is. 
> 
> Again, thank you for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm over at tumblr @ willemsragnarsson if y'all want to talk and scream about s3 or something, lol. Thank you for taking a time to read this!


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